Abstract
Although hotels are at the heart of the international tourism economy, research on
hotels constitutes only a minor theme in tourism scholarship. This article addresses the essential
present-mindedness of tourism studies. More specifically, through archival documentary sources,
it seeks to analyse the emergence and expansion of one leading hotel group, Southern Sun Hotels,
in the context of the changing and challenging business environment for tourism development of
apartheid South Africa. The reference period for this investigation marks the growing isolation of
South Africa in the international community and the beginnings of boycotts and sanctions. The
article represents a contribution to scholarship on hotel histories and to the growing literature devoted
to the impact of sanctions on the tourism industry and tourism businesses. It is argued that
the rise and expansion of Southern Sun hotels was facilitated by the business environment, which
was fostered by the apartheid state in the context of South Africa’s growing international isolation
and the onset of sanctions. Following Southern Sun’s initial expansion in leisure and business hotels
an important new chapter opened with the apartheid policy of Bantustan development and
the opening of casino-resorts by Southern Sun.